I'm reading a fascinating book called How We Decide , by Johah Lehrer (his blog about neuroscience is here ). More than anything, it's been about why we consistently make bad decisions, and he offers example after example of experiments that demonstrate how we're wired and what that makes us do. I just finished the chapter about making moral decisions. Though he explains it all from the perspective of synapses firing and chemical compounds, he describes what motivates us to act in what I would call a Christlike manner: in the results of a survey, scientists found that "people who showed more brain activity in their sympathetic regions were also much more likely to exhibit altruistic behavior. Because they intensely imagined the feelings of other people, they wanted to make other people feel better, even it came at personal expense" (183). That's why it feels good to help other people. Call it a chemical reaction, call it the Holy Ghost, call it whatever, we ar...